Archive for Jul 29, 2011

You have to be a pretty special device to get all the features the PHOTON 4G has yet still come with a kickstand. You'll see what I mean as we go over everything this device offers. From being a powerful dual-core phone to all the accessories, this one is aiming right for the Atrix. The Motorola PHOTON 4G was announced back in June and we were live in NYC for some hands-on time while it was on display. Today is the full deal though, review and all so see below for all the details.

Lockheed Martin has been working on a new generation of airships, which I have always called blimps. Decades ago, the airship was seen as the future of passenger flight across the country and between continents. The airship was quickly surpassed in capability by aircraft and thanks to notable disasters it was relegated to use for advertising and filming sporting events for the most part.

Google has confirmed it snapped up a bundle of IBM patents, in a move that is believed to be defensive against the growing number of IP-based lawsuits. The 1,030 patents acquired cover a broad range of technologies, SEO by the Sea reports, including memory and microprocessor chip fabrication/architecture, server and router design, and software programming such as relational databases, object oriented programming and more.

The company that brought us the OnLive cloud gaming system has a new way to use the cloud to reduce the latency and interference associated with sending WiFi and 3G data across a network. The new system is called DIDO and it was invented by Steve Perlman. Perlman offered a glimpse at what DIDO can do for cloud services like OnLive gaming in the whitepaper describing the DIDO system.

Yesterday I mentioned that over in the UK the High Court had ordered BT to block access to the pirate website Newsbin2. The original Newzbin site had been closed down previously and went into administration to pay back money the owners were fined. The site was later sold to new owners. The new owners opened Newzbin2 and continue to offer up the same catalog of pirated content to members for download.

The white version of Samsung's best-selling Galaxy S II has been confirmed for a September 1 release in the UK. Functionally identical to the existing black Galaxy S II - which hit the market 85 days ago, and has already racked up 5m sales and set a new record within Samsung - the white model will have the same 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus display and 1.2GHz dual-core processor that impressed us in our review of the smartphone.

Verbatim has a new line of external storage drives that are thin and compact plus they are clad in brightly colored cases. The new external HDDs are called the Verbatim color splashed Store 'n' Go SuperSpeed USB 3.0 portable HDD. The new drives are designed to connect to your USB 3.0 drive as the name of the drive shows.

Apple's new MacBook Air may have a Thunderbolt port, but size and cost constraints have led to the updated ultraportable offering reduced external display support in comparison to its MacBook Pro, iMac and Mac mini siblings. The Air uses an Eagle Ridge Thunderbolt chip, AnandTech reports, which only supports half the data channels of the chip found in the other recent Apple models, as well as a single DisplayPort output.

Yesterday the Steak Pro was nothing more than a somewhat grainy leaked photo that was floating around the web. Today the Steak 10 Pro is officially official and has landed in China for purchase. The tablet is looking to offer the ability for pros to manage both parts of their life with the business needs and the consumer home needs addressed in one tablet. The little tablet runs Android 3.1 Gingerbread and has a 10.1-inch screen.

Apple and Samsung have pushed Nokia into the number three position for worldwide smartphone sales, analysts have claimed, with strong Q2 2011 performance leaving Symbian devices significantly overshadowed. Apple is now the number one smartphone manufacturer, Strategy Analytics' figures suggest, with 18.5-percent of the market, while Samsung comes in at second place, with 17.5-percent. In contrast, Nokia has 15.2-percent in the last quarter, less than half the 38.1-percent in the same period twelve months ago.

What looks to be Fusion Garage's JooJoo 2 has been caught clearing the FCC, the company's second attempt at the fast-growing tablet segment. Details on the currently unnamed tablet are scant, thanks to a confidentiality agreement that lifts at the end of November, though the test report does confirm the device to be a "smart mobile tablet PC" with dualband WCDMA/HSDPA, WiFi b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR.

Adapter lenses to encourage your iPhone to take unusual photos are increasingly popular as the optics across each generation of Apple smartphone improve, and Pixeet reckons what your handset needs is a fish eye. The snap-on lens comes with an iPhone case to which it mounts magnetically, as well as a special app that stitches four shots into a floor to ceiling full 360-degree panorama.